Winstead Vineyards

Region:

Australia, Tasmania

Address:

75 Winstead Road, Bagda, TAS, 7030, Australia

Website:

http://www.winstead.com.au

Description:

In the early 1800's, as much of Tasmania was still undergoing European settlement, a young marine, Private Hugh Germain, would travel into unexplored areas around Hobart Town to hunt wallaby for food for the townsfolk. In his saddle bags he carried two books, The Holy Bible and The Arabian Knights. He used these books to name many of the places where he would camp on his hunting expeditions. Hence within close proximity, you will find Jerusalem, Jericho, River Jordan, Lake Tiberius and of course Bagdad. The warm, open Bagdad valley soon became famous for its ability to grow many fruits such as apples, pears and stone fruits. Unfortunately there is very little water in the valley, and the area often experiences summer droughts, which led to these orchards failing after successive poor seasons. After this foray, the open grasslands became a place for grazing sheep. In the mid 1980's we purchased a 4ha lot of land, which had been a part of the old Winstead Farm. We felt this would be an ideal place for vines. With the subdivision of the original farm, the lots were connected to the local council reticulated water scheme, meaning the terroir of the original orchards was a thing of the past. Frost was the next enemy to combat, but after taking numerous measurements and talking to some of the older inhabitants of the valley we discovered the slopes we owned were relatively frost-free. This was definitely more good luck than good management. So in 1989 we planted a small test patch of 50 Pinot Noir vines. In 1990 we added a further 4000 vines. The die was cast. The original vineyard of 1.5ha was planted to Pinot Noir and Riesling. In 1993 we purchased a further parcel of land 500 metres further up the valley and planted a further 1.5ha to Pinot, Sauvignon Blanc and a small test patch of Merlot. This year we will be planting a small test plot of Shiraz, which will be very interesting.

Email:

winsteadvy@bigpond.com

Phone:

+61 3 6268 6417